


The Colour of Deception

by Esinde Nayrall (red_squared)



Category: Weiss Kreuz
Genre: M/M, dark!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:15:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/red_squared/pseuds/Esinde%20Nayrall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t insult me, Kudoh. I’ve taken the memory ride through your soap opera of a life.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Colour of Deception

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_rck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Цвет обмана](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6423487) by [elinorwise](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elinorwise/pseuds/elinorwise)
  * Inspired by [Stockholm Syndrome](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/3050) by the_rck. 



_Got some revelation put into your hands_  
Save you from your misery like rain across the land  
Don't you see the colour of deception?  
Turnin' your world around again

(“Suicide Blonde” – from INXS' “X”)

~~*~~

 ****  
_Before_  


_“I already told you: my name’s Itoh, not Kudoh. I’m not who you’re looking —”_

_“But you are who I’ve been looking for, White Kitten. Not just any white kitten, but the lastone,” the foreigner replies mockingly._

_Ryoh hasn’t the faintest idea what that remark means, but the idea of there being only one white kitten left makes him feel unspeakably sad, even if he doesn’t know why._

_“You see? Part of you knows enough to be upset at that thought even if the rest of you is still too blind to —”_

_“I’m worried about my wife,” he says. It irritates him that he doesn’t know this man’s name to address him when he responds. “I’ve stayed here long enough and — ”_

_“You’re going nowhere. Your wife’s Esset.”_

_That doesn’t mean anything to him either, and he doesn’t know how to respond or how else to ask to be able to leave. He notices a thin trickle of blood running out of the foreigner’s nose and down over his lips._

_“Are you on drugs?” he asks, aghast. If he’s being detained by someone who’s out of his mind, then there’s no point trying to reason his way out of here._

_“The very best kind — 100 per cent effective, extremely addicting and with the sort of withdrawal you’ll want to scream home about. Just a little bit longer and I’ll be firing on all cylinders. Let’s hope you’re worth it.”_

_Ryoh has had enough of this and starts to stand up. The foreigner moves toward him faster than anybody has any right to move and shoves back him into his seat._

_“Surprised? Or didn’t your ‘Asuka’ move like this? Maybe you really don’t know anything about what she was or who she worked for …”_

_“’Was’?” He fights down a wave of panic and faces his captor again. “What’s happened to her?”_

_“She didn’t tell you anything? Even if she did … Ah, you’ve been given something to help you forget. Was it before you married her, or more recently?”_

_“Answer me! What’s happened to my wife?” he demands. He’s raised his voice, certainly, but isn’t yelling anything close to loudly enough to justify the way in which the other man winces and scowls. Probably hung-over, which would explain why he needs to wear sunglasses inside._

_“Sit. Down,” the foreigner growls at him with another push. “Your wife’s an Esset agent working to pull down leaders around the world.”_

_Ryoh stares up at the foreigner and struggles against the urge to laugh hysterically._

_“You didn’t find it suspicious, did you?” the foreigner continues. “That you just happenedto run into a woman with the same name and appearance as your first love?”_

_It feels like something is crawling across his brain, and Ryoh twitches violently to shake it off._

_“Stop fighting me, Kudoh. This is hard enough as it is.”_

_“My name’s not —” he begins to say, but is distracted by an image of his wife, much younger than she was when he met her, smiling crinkly-eyed and calling him by the same name. “It’s not …” A gunshot sounds and she goes down, screaming. “What are you …?”_

_In a voice tight with impatience, the foreigner mutters, “Looks like I have the right man after all. But let’s be absolutely sure.”_

_He doesn’t hear any of the rest of it as, in his mind’s eye, his wife — once again dressed in clothing he’s fairly certain she doesn’t own — sneers at him and then aims a kick right at his head._

_“I’m not …” he whispers._

_There are silver spots in front of his eyes, blood pounding past in his ears and a pain in his chest that he can’t seem to breathe around._

_“Stay with me, Kudoh!”_

_“I told you, I’m not …” he gasps, closing his eyes and trying to wrench away from the other man._

_The darkness and the pain swallow everything._

_When he comes to, someone is holding him close and running their fingers through his hair._

_“Awake at last?”_

_He turns to face whoever is addressing him and finds that, more than being held close, he’s sitting on someone’s lap, naked._

_“I don’t have time to be gentle with you,” the stranger tells him. He sounds almost apologetic “Try to stay with me, Kudoh, and I’ll do my best not to break your heart again.”_

~~*~~

“I should have seen it coming. After the prison riot, after that last report from New York … Of course you’d be next in line,” Nagi says. “I should have —”

“I’m fine,” he says, shifting the icepack on his temple. He makes himself smile reassuringly, rather than snapping as he wants to. The assassin had been able to get far too close for comfort. “I can actually take care of myself, you know.”

Nagi snorts and slams Mamoru’s office door shut behind him. “You had no choice but to kill your assailant. I could have neutralised him and left him alive to be questioned so that we’d get a lead on who’s behind all of this.”

That irritates him all the more for being true. “Speaking of ‘seeing things coming’,” he says casually, “don’t you think it’s an awful coincidence that all of this has happened within a few days of your Crawford leaving Japan?”

“You think _Crawford’s_ behind this?” Nagi asks. He slumps into a seat, stunned. “It doesn’t look good for him, I’ll admit.”

Destroying Esset and Epitaph had destroyed more of Weiss than Mamoru cares to remember, and had almost destroyed Crawford. For the first six months after the collapse of the Kowa Academy, Crawford had been in critical condition and on a drip feed under Schuldig’s care. He’d only been discharged from the hospital a few weeks ago, to live in Schuldig’s suite at the Four‑Seasons.

Nobody has said or has had to say anything to Mamoru, but he has always had his suspicions about the nature of Crawford and Schuldig’s relationship — something that’s only been strengthened further by Nagi’s reports of Schuldig’s descent into depression when Crawford walked out on him. And after Schuldig spent the best part of the last year and a half nursing Crawford back to health, the ungrateful bastard.

Mamoru can’t think of a nicer person for it to have happened to, personally, although he keeps that to himself. For whatever reason, Nagi is genuinely fond of Schuldig. Crawford’s walking out on Schuldig seems to have upset Nagi nearly as much as it’s upset Schuldig.

“It’s the only lead we have so far,” he says. “Who else could be behind it?”

He’s irritated by the lack of other suspects and once again kicks himself for killing the assassin. Whoever it is had enough knowledge of Ken and Aya to go after them.

Part of him wishes there were something of Omi left in him to mourn, but the rest of him is painfully aware that there is so much more to do. There isn’t any time left for tears.

He’s waiting on confirmation from Kritiker’s counterpart in New York before he makes the necessary arrangements to break the news to Aya‑chan, and as for Ken … He can hardly go to the prison morgue in person to do the identification, but someone had better do it soon because they can’t hold the body indefinitely.

He’d send Rex, but she’s vanished under suspicious circumstances as well, and she’s not the only one on the Kritiker payroll that has.

“Esset,” Nagi says.

He stares at Nagi in disbelief, wondering if this is supposed to be some sort of joke. “I realise that ’Esset’ is Schwarz’s answer to all of the world’s ills, but is it —”

“I’m not Schwarz anymore,” Nagi says firmly.

“No, but —”

“You and Abyssinian and Siberian weren’t the only ones who were attacked. A block of townhouses just outside Tokyo were blown up two days ago.”

“That leak in the gas main?” he asks. He vaguely recalls skimming over such a report a day or so ago, even though recent events have taken his mind off it entirely.

 “I investigated it because it seemed suspicious. It wasn’t a gas leak,” Nagi says. “Several people are dead, but among the missing is a young man called Ryoh Itoh, and —”

“I don’t see what this has to do with —”

“— his wife, Asuka Itoh.”

Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s been remembering his time in Weiss these past two days, but the mention of the name ‘Asuka’ physically pains him. Mamoru presses the icepack hard against his aching head and blinks at Nagi. “What does this have to do with Esset? Or with me?” he whispers.

“Other than his hair, which is dark brown, Itoh is a perfect match for Balinese’s description,” Nagi says.

“It might be Yohji’s natural colour,” he murmurs, not really aware of what he’s saying.

Of course, he’d always suspected that that particular shade of caramel blond hadn’t been Yohji’s natural hair colour, but it wasn’t until the Asian Financial Crisis put the firm that had made their hair dye out of business that Mamoru’d been certain.

He can remember it like it was yesterday — going to Yohji to ask for help in picking another colour, before he’d eventually decided to go back to his natural black, when he’d accepted his grandfather’s offer. Yohji had decided to change his look entirely, picking out a shade that bore the unfortunate name ‘Suicide Blond’.

And Aya’d had to change his colour slightly as well, swapping out his vibrant crimson for a more sedate burgundy. Mamoru can recall catching Yohji’s eye the first time they’d seen Aya with his new colour, both of them trying not to laugh.

“You said missing. Is he …?”

“I have good reason to believe that Asuka Itoh is an Esset agent. I don’t—— Mamoru, it’s possible that Balinese is one as well.”

Mamoru opens his mouth automatically to defend him, but Nagi won’t give him a chance to speak.

“More than a year, Mamoru. And it’s not as if you’re a recluse or a private figure. If he wanted to get in contact with you, he could have. Why has he stayed away all this time? What’s he hiding?”

“I want to know for certain. Where is he?”

“Schuldig is working with him, to see what he knows.”

“ _Schuldig?_ Who authorised you to —”

“I’m your chief of security,” Nagi replies. His tone is implacable. “I’m authorised to protect you, and that includes from yourself. You can see him after I’m satisfied he doesn’t pose a threat. Even if he doesn’t know anything about his wife’s involvement with Esset, bringing him to you could draw Esset’s attention to —”

“Yes,” Mamoru agrees as cheerfully as he can, “the last thing we’d want is for Esset’s attention to be drawn to me. Why, they might try to have me murdered.”

Nagi has the grace to look faintly abashed.

“How long will this take?”

“It was supposed to take a couple of hours, but there have been … complications.”

His eyebrows go up at that. Nagi knows that he’s not squeamish about details, so what complications could there possibly be?

“Balinese has been given something to erase his memories of anything other than being Asuka Itoh’s devoted husband, Ryoh. Schuldig isn’t sure when it was administered, but it makes everything more difficult.”

“He forgot about me?”

“Schuldig is trying to find out whether he forgot before or after he met Asuka.”

“What does she look like?” Esset’d had … Esset _has_ access to cloning technology, after all. Perhaps they’d made Yohji an Asuka he couldn’t refuse…

“I don’t know.”

“Please find out. If nothing else, find out if she matches Neu’s description.” He himself doesn’t know what Yohji’s Asuka looked like, but Yohji wouldn’t have been taken in by Neu unless she’d been very, very close to the ‘real’ thing.

Nagi’s mouth tightens at the reference to Schreient, but he nods. “I’ll ask Schuldig to check.”

Mamoru sighs and puts the icepack on his desk, flexing numb fingers. “Thank you, Nagi‑kun. Is there anything else?”

He startles slightly as the icepack returns to the bump on his temple and then relaxes when he realises Nagi is using his Power.

“I’ll hold it while you work,” Nagi says, sitting up properly and assuming a more watchful posture. “Someone has to keep you from getting a swelled head, after all.”

~~*~~

 ****  
_Before_  


_“The lying needs to stop. Lying to me means you’re lying to yourself, which makes my life difficult, and that means I’ll make yourlife difficult.”_

_“I’m not —” Yohji cuts off with a yelp as something comes down onto his bare rear with a stinging smack._

_“You’re even lying to me about lying,” Schuldig says. He sounds displeased, and Yohji’s not convinced that he can handle another bout of Schuldig’s displeasure today._

_Whatever it is that Schuldig smacked him with comes up from below this time, slow and gentle, grazing up his thigh before tapping against his groin. It feels like a switch._

_“Tell me how you’re feeling,” Schuldig says._

_Yohji tries to calm himself by taking a deep breath, but he has no idea what the other man wants to hear._

_“Don’t even think about lying to me. I’ll know.”_

_“Cold,” he says, before he has a chance to over-think it. “Scared.”_

_He’s naked, on his elbows and knees with his face pressed against the floor and his arse in the air._

_“Why are you scared?”_

_“I don’t kn—” He has to bite his lip to keep from crying out as the switch strikes his groin hard._

_With hardly any distance at all between the floor and his groin, there shouldn’t be enough room for someone to swing the switch enough for it to hurt this badly._

_“What are you scared of?” Schuldig repeats, as if nothing has happened._

_“You,” he replies, blinking back tears and wanting to cross his legs from the pain. “You hurting me.”_

_“I wouldn’t have to, if you stopped lying to me.”_

_“I’m sorry,” he whispers, turning his face away. “I don’t know what you want.”_

_“I need answers, Kudoh. You may not know them to give to me, but you have them all the same.”_

_It’s the same thing Schuldig has said to him every other time he’s visited Yohji._

_“How do you know I have them to give?”_

_“I know all sorts of things about you.”_

_He hasn’t heard anything being put away or picked up, but suddenly there’s something with an icy burn being smoothed onto his skin._

_“Does that feel better?”_

_No. He hates having Schuldig’s hands on him, touching him intimately or touching him at all._

_“Answer me,” Schuldig says, rubbing slick fingers over Yohji’s groin and soothing the sting._

_“I don’t like it when you touch me,” he says._

_He’s expecting to be punished, so it’s something of a surprise when Schuldig laughs._

_“You’re so delightful, Kudoh.”_

_Two of those fingers trail back down between his legs and then skim across his exposed hole, pressing in slightly without actually penetrating him._

_He tries to close his legs, but Schuldig pries them apart, sounding amused. “Say what you’re thinking,” Schuldig tells him, nuzzling in against his ear to say it._

_“You said you’d only punish me if I lied to you,” he says. He tries to twist away, but Schuldig’s grip is like iron._

_He can feel Schuldig’s smile against his skin, just before Schuldig pushes two fingers into him and scissors them apart._

_“You think this is punishment? Perhaps I’ve been going too easy on you all along.”_

~~*~~

“You sent him into cardiac arrest?” Nagi asks.

“I didn’t _mean_ to,” Schuldig says, annoyed.

“It’s going to take years before your technique catches up to your strength,” Nagi says, lifting the milk off the stove with one hand.

 _My technique is just fine_ , he sends to Nagi.

Nagi doesn’t respond, but Schuldig can hear him thinking, _No. It isn’t. You broke his mind. What am I going to tell Mamoru?_

“Anyway,” Schuldig continues, “if your technique is so wonderful, why do you need to use your hands to —?”

The milk that was heating in the saucepan rises up like a water spout, and then splits into twin whirlpools that move to centre over the glasses that Nagi set out earlier. He puts the saucepan back down as blocks of dark chocolate seem to leap from the countertop and into the whirlpools before they’re whipped through the milk.

“You want your hot chocolate in a glass, or shall I pour it down your throat?” Nagi asks.

One of the whirlpools zings straight at Schuldig's face before he has a chance to answer, and just as quickly, the glass snaps up and sideways and catches the still scalding liquid before it can hit him.

“How’s Kudoh now?” Nagi asks.

“He’s fully recovered.” Schuldig takes the glass as it’s floated to his hand.

“Can I see him?”

“He’s sleeping.”

“How long before —” Nagi starts to ask.

“I’ve only had him for three days. As it is, I’ve confirmed that it’s Kudoh, and that ‘Asuka Itoh’ could have been Neu’s twin sister.”

“That’s all?” Nagi makes no effort to hide his disappointment.

“The rest is there, but it’s all a mess. I can’t make any sense of it, and I need him to help me work out what goes where.”

“But you’ve cleared him of having anything to do with Esset?”

“For the last few months? Yes. But he was in it up to his neck with Mayumi Tsuji, and before that, he was very much involved with the leader of an Esset cell in Europe.”

“In order to do his job, or …?”

“Hard to say. He’s not entirely certain himself.” Dipping into Kudoh’s mind had given him such a headache initially. What he has to work with now is much more satisfying since Yohji isn’t fighting him constantly, but Yohji's own mind doesn’t know enough to join all of the dots for him. “I can’t do it without his cooperation. That means it needs more effort and —”

“Schu, it can’t take longer than five days.”

As if he needs to be told. If he’d had more time, he could work at building Kudoh’s trust properly, rather than beating him into submission.

“I _know_ , kid, I don’t need you to —”

“I mean it, Schuldig. You can’t use this as an excuse to get any more pills from me. Five days is the absolute limit. I won’t let you get addicted again.”

“Yes, boss,” he agrees sourly.

Nagi gives him a worried look and comes over to the sofa to sit next to him. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You miss Crawfod,” Nagi says simply, setting his own untouched glass on the floor. “Even though he was a heartless, controlling cheapskate who almost crippled all of us to —”

“We don’t know what the alternatives were. When the Tower fell —”

“Even before the Tower fell, we were starting to burn out. We could barely hold off Weiss. He pushed us too hard to be too strong, too fast, and now —”

“We don’t know what the alternatives were,” he says again. “Maybe that was the only way to win.”

Part of him wishes Brad were here now, while the rest of him wishes that he didn’t still want Brad.

“I wish you’d stop defending him,” Nagi says. “It makes him harder to hate.”

“You don’t hate him.”

“I want to.”

“Yeah? Then I should be better off without him, right? So why aren’t you happy for me?”

“ _You_ should have left _._ He let you do everything for him the last couple of months, and as soon as he recovers he just walks out, because he doesn’t need you anymore?”

“I’m so lucky I have you here to remind me of these things. If you’re done making me feel better, you can go.”

“ _Schu_ ,” Nagi murmurs unhappily, before shifting in closer to him.

“How long did the withdrawal last? For you?”

“Three months. But I was —”

“It’s been ten for me, kid.” He takes a deep breath and tries to block out his distress, but Nagi snuggles close before he can shield his emotions. “My telepathy’s gone, and it’s not coming back without the drugs.”

“I was younger,” Nagi whispers, resting his head on Schuldig’s shoulder. “And I walked out without taking any of them with me, so it was a clean break. You still take some every now and then. It’s not the same.”

“I had to.” His telepathy had been the only way any of them could communicate with Brad while he was recovering from his duel with Berger.

Nagi snorts at this, no doubt to emphasise the waste of time and effort Schuldig put into taking care of Brad during his recovery. “You really will be much better once you come off the drugs. It’ll take a while, but you’ll be able to reach out over a greater distance —”

“And have my mind scrambled by the thoughts of everyone within range as —”

“— and you’ll be able to shield selectively. It won’t be all or nothing anymore.”

Should he tell Nagi or not? “Actually, I know. I … I reached Brad.”

“Where is he?”

He ignores the question and says instead, “I warned him. That Esset might be … He should know.”

“You’re hoping he comes back to lead the fight against them?”

“He won’t be coming back for me. I’m burnt out, remember?” He takes a deep breath. “My telepathy’s not coming back by itself. Neither is Brad. It’s the drugs, or it’s nothing.”

“ _Schu_.”

“I took the pills in the first place because I needed to be strong enough to keep the Elders from working out what we were up to. We wouldn’t have won without them.”

That last week leading up to the ceremony had almost killed him. He’d been so fried, he’d been unable to tell a comatose Aya apart from a Sakura who was only pretending to sleep.

“I took them for the same reason. All they did was reroute all of my energies to my telekinesis, because that was the only talent of mine that Crawford thought was useful. And even then, he was only interested in brute force. It was only after I stopped taking them that I developed as an empath, and as a water elemental.”

Schuldig still isn’t entirely convinced that there’s any practical use for empathy, but that storm that Nagi had whipped up over the Kowa Academy had certainly come in handy.

“That just proves it’s not coming back,” he says.

“Schuldig —”

“Brad kept me around because I was useful to him. I kept others out of our minds, and I was the primary communication conduit for Schwarz. Now there is no Schwarz, which means he doesn’t need me to keep the conduit open, and he knows that once the drugs wear off, my powers are gone. And they’re not coming back,” he says, when Nagi starts to object. “Because if they were, he wouldn’t have left me.”

“That’s assuming he’s Seen things right.” Nagi stands up and adjusts his clothing, clearly preparing to leave.

Schuldig sighs. “Go home, kid. Tell Takatori that I’ll have Balinese ready to go in a few days.” He laughs, standing up as well. “Well, it’ll have to be a few days, won’t it?”

Fuck. It won’t just be enough to obtain the answers he needs, he’ll need to fix Kudoh’s mind to approach something resembling the man Takatori will remember, rather than the beautiful, broken doll he is now.

He bends forward to give Nagi a kiss on the cheek, but is swept up in a hug instead.

“Finish the chocolate. You’ll feel better.”

~~*~~

 ****  
_Before_  


_It doesn’t seem to matter which way he faces — the door always opens from behind him, and is shut tight before he can turn around._

_“What are you thinking about, Kudoh?”_

_“You.” It’s best to keep his answers simple, he’s found._

_“I’ve been thinking about you, too. Are you hungry?”_

_He hadn’t been before Schuldig mentioned it, but he finds that he is now and says so._

_“Come here.”_

_He could stand up, but Schuldig seems to enjoy watching him crawl._

_“I have something for you.”_

_It’s a glass filled with … Chocolate? It smells like chocolate mixed with milk, so strong that he’s surprised he didn’t smell it before._

_“What are you going to give me in exchange?”_

_Yohji stops in front of him and kneels up. He doesn’t hear the glass being set aside, but both of Schuldig’s hands tangle into his hair as Yohji rubs his cheek against Schuldig’s groin._

_It’s almost like the memory of a dream, but in his mind’s eye, he can see that he has a cord or wire or something wrapped around Schuldig’s throat, with the ends in his hands, pulling them tight._

_“Have you ever thought about killing me?” Schuldig asks. It’s said so softly that he almost misses it._

_“I don’t mean to,” he says truthfully._

_They’re nothing more than dreams. The other one is where they’re both being pulled down, down, down into deep, dark water, and all he can think is that it doesn’t matter if he never sees the surface again as long as Schuldig drowns first._

_“You’re getting much better at this,” Schuldig says._

_He sounds almost proud as he pulls Yohji away from mouthing at his erection, and that’s when he realises that Schuldig means that Yohji’s getting better at answering truthfully, and not better at pleasing him._

_“It’s your honesty that pleases me,” Schuldig tells him._

_There are memories of other dreams, but they dart away from him when he tries to call them back. They seem to swarm around him whenever Schuldig is happy with him. There’s a girl in front of his eyes — short dark hair, trim athletic build, and she dies in three different ways._

_“Although, sometimes I like it when you lie, because you’re so pretty when I punish you.”_

_He can see a rain of flowers spilling out of a van and landing on top of a disgruntled, dark‑haired boy. There’s a smaller blond boy off to the side, wringing his hands and exclaiming over the waste, but over it all, he can hear what he’s fairly certain is the sound of his own laughter._

_“What are you thinking about, Kudoh?” Schuldig tips Yohji’s chin up to look at him and pets his hair as he waits for an answer._

_“Sometimes I like it when you punish me,” he says, and then holds his breath._

_“Liar.” But Schuldig doesn’t look unhappy as he says it._

~~*~~

He still can’t believe he really has Yohji back once more, all warm smile and lazy grace. Nagi was right — apart from the colour of his hair, Yohji hasn’t changed very much at all.

“I’m so glad you’re back, Yohji‑kun. How are you feeling? You’ll let me know if you want to sleep?”

Mamoru’s arranged for the two of them to be helicoptered into Villa White rather than having to be driven up. That way, his security can stay down at the checkpoints rather than in the chalet with them, because he wants this private time with Yohji. He’s not sure when he might have an opportunity to do so in the future, and after everybody he’s lost recently, he’s learned to take his chances where he can.

“I’m okay.” Yohji has a game smile as he says it, but he looks exhausted. “I’m glad you … had me brought back.”

“Are you really, Yohji‑kun?”

“Omi, are you crying again?”

And that’s said in almost exactly the same tone as one of the last things Mamoru can remember Yohji ever saying to him. “You’re always so mean to me!”

His vision blurs with tears, but he can make out Yohji coming towards him, arms open wide.

“I just remembered it, too,” Yohji says softly. Mamoru leans into him. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I searched everywhere for you. Aya went back like he promised and looked and looked through the wreck by himself, but I was searching for you everywhere else.”

When he closes his eyes, he can still see Yohji pinned under the rubble, telling the rest of them to get out.

_If Nagi hadn’t had his hands full trying to keep Crawford from bleeding to death …_

He wants to ask about Esset, but before he can, Yohji sighs sadly and asks, “It’s really true about Ken? And Aya?”

He makes a small sound in the affirmative before Yohji pulls him back into a hug.

“Who’s been looking after you?”

“I’m fine, Yohji‑kun. I have my family and my work.”

He could never consciously choose between any of his Weiss-mates, but getting Yohji back almost balances losing Aya and Ken. It helps that Yohji actually seems happy to see him, whereas Aya and Ken wanted nothing more to do with Weiss or with him.

“One of the first memories I got back …” Yohji stops and grins. “It was after Aya messed up the schedule two days in a row, so Ken wasn’t able to get away for training.”

“You mean that time he cooked dinner, using all of the foods Aya hated most or was allergic to?”

He smiles at the memory, and Yohji laughs.

“And Aya actually apologised.” Because the food had smelled wonderful even if it contained things that Aya hated. And that was when Ken brought out the final dish which was something Aya could actually eat.

“Ken was a good friend.” He isn’t looking forward to telling Yohji howKen had died, or where.

“They both were,” Yohji says, rubbing a hand up and down Mamoru’s back. “We should … We should do something to remember them.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing now? Or do you mean a service?” He’s organised so many of them, he could probably do it in his sleep. “It’ll just be you and me, since we’re the only ones who knew them,” he adds. Guiltily, he reminds himself he still has to arrange to break the news to Aya‑chan.

“You could invite Schwarz, as well, since they work for you now.”

“There is no Schwarz anymore, Yohji‑kun.” He says it automatically because he’s so used to hearing it from Nagi. “Farfarello left them in Europe, Nagi‑kun left them later — also in Europe, and Crawford left Schuldig a few weeks ago. But we could invite Nagi‑kun and Schuldig, if you like,” he adds.

“No, it’s— It’s up to you. So … There are only two of them left, just like there’re only two of us left?”

“It’s not the same,” he says. He rests his head on Yohji’s shoulder, still with Yohji’s arm stroking up and down his back. “People leaving is different to people dying.”

“Yeah. If they don’t want to come back, it’s worse.”

He frowns, wondering if Yohji is thinking about his wife. They’ve been unable to find any trace of her.

“What’s the matter?” Yohji asks, giving him a worried look. His darker hair makes his eyes impossibly green.

“I wish we’d found you first,” he says. “But I’m glad Schuldig was able to help you.” He still can’t bring himself to feel any affection for Schuldig, but he didreturn Yohji’s memories. And Nagi trusts him. “Nagi says he’s been very lonely, since Crawford left. Did you know they were a couple?”

Yohji blinks, startled. “Who told you that?”

“I didn’t need anybody to tell me,” he says. And then he sticks out his tongue, because there is something about Yohji that makes him feel like he’s fourteen.

Yohji gives him a dirty smile before he says, “Right, you got all of this by spying through your security cameras, didn’t you?”

“ _Yohji_ ‑kun.”

“I keep telling you it’s not healthy for someone your age to stay up all night watching —”

“I don’t,” he says, smacking Yohji hard. “You’re worse than all of the paparazzi put together with all the things you invent about me!”

In the morning, he’ll need to come up with something for Yohji to do or a place for him to stay, now he’s back. Most importantly, he’ll have to work out how to keep Yoh— _Ryoh’s_ wife from finding him.

But he’s only just now realised how much he’s missed all of them, and now that he has one of them back, he has no intention of ever letting go.

~~*~~

 ****  
_Before_  


_Wherever it is he’s been moved to, he can see where the door and the windows are, and he can find the light switch by himself._

_He can hear Schuldig’s footsteps before Schuldig appears, and he can face the doorway to meet him when he does._

_“What are you thinking, Kudoh?”_

_“You don’t look well.”_

_“I’m not.” His customary smirk is a sickly version of its usual self. “We’re getting to the end of our time together.” Yohji stands up in alarm, but Schuldig is by his side almost instantly. “Relax. Nothing bad is going to happen to you.”_

_“Where are you going?”_

_“I’m not going anywhere, but … You will be.”_

_There are too many questions he wants to ask, starting with where he’ll be going, who’ll be keeping him, why Schuldig is sending him away …_

_“Do you want to ask me something?”_

_“Will I be able to see you again, afterwards?”_

_Schuldig looks surprised, but says, “If you want to.”_

_“I don’t want to go.”_

_“You will.” It sounds like a promise._

_Schuldig is standing close by, so it’s the easiest thing in the world for Yohji to press against him and kiss him._

****  
_Do you think you’ll miss me?_  
  


_It’s Schuldig’s voice, right inside his mind. He doesn’t want to break the kiss to reply, so he answers with his actions, reaching up to pull Schuldig’s shirt off._

****  
_That feels amazing, but you don’t want this. Not really. This is entirely the wrong thing for you to develop a will of your own about._  


_Yohji pushes Schuldig towards the bed. He has an actual bed now, but he hasn’t had a chance to sleep in it yet. This seems like a much better use to put it to._

****  
_We can’t — I only have a few minutes left …_  


_And he stops what he’s doing, because that makes it sound as though Schuldig is dying. “Are you?” he asks, even though Schuldig hasn’t asked him what he’s thinking._

_“Would it matter to you if I was?”_

_There aren’t words to express how much it would upset him if it were true, but that’s all right, because he’s found that he doesn’t need to actually say the words for Schuldig to know how he feels._

****  
_Do you … Do you love me?_  


_“Don’t you know?”_

_Schuldig reaches a hand up to touch Yohji’s face, and white light explodes behind his head._

~~*~~

When there’s a knock at his door — Nagi has his own key — he thinks for a moment it might be Brad returning in response to his warning about Esset, so that Schuldig can have the pleasure of ordering him to fuck off without telling him anything more.

While his telepathy was still working, he could sense Brad trying to decide whether or not to come back.

Of course, there’s nothing left of his telepathy now, which is why he startles when he opens the door to find Kudoh standing there.

“What are you doing here?”

“I said I’d come back to see you,” Kudoh tells him. He walks inside without an invitation. “And Naoe can’t make it today.”

In the week since Kudoh was handed back to Takatori’s care, the only person who’s visited him is Nagi, to make sure that he’s managing the withdrawal appropriately.

“I talked to him,” Kudoh continues. “He explained a few things that were driving me crazy.”

“What?”

“None of it was real, was it? The whole thing was a mindfuck. That was how you were able to keep me locked up for what felt like months without my ever having to bathe or shave or relieve myself. Was I even awake for any of it?”

“All of it was real. As real as it needed to be, to get you to let me in so that I could start putting your mind back together.”

“And you had to do it fast.”

“Everything’s a lot faster up here,” he says, tapping his forehead, “than it is out here. It’s how I stretched a few days into a few months.”

“Because you had to finish it before the drugs wore off.”

“Nagi told you about that?”

“No. Mamoru did.” Kudoh shrugs slightly and then looks back at him. “It _felt_ like months, but …”

“I’d have taken it slower if I’d known that you didn’t know anything about your wife’s Esset connection.”

“But you made it work, in the end. As far as I can tell, anyway.”

As ludicrous as it sounds, he wonders if Kudoh is trying to thank him.

“But the last time,” Kudoh says, apparently unwilling to let it drop. ”The last time was real.”

“Yeah,” is all he can manage. Schuldig can recall perfectly the way Kudoh’s slim, bare body had felt, wound around him like a vine. To say nothing of the emotions that had been pouring off him.

“Wow. That’s as embarrassing as all hell,” Kudoh murmurs.

“ _That_ was embarrassing as all hell?” he asks. It shouldn’t surprise him that Kudoh doesn’t want to stand by what he said at the time, but it hurts all the same. “But not when I switched you? Or made you drink chocolate milk off the floor?”

“That was the only thing that was real!”

“It was all real, I just told you that!”

“I mean that was the only thing I had any control over. You made me do the rest!”

“It was straight out of your subconscious, you freakshow. I didn’t do a single thing you weren’t expecting of me, and there’s a lot on that list I never got around to.”

Kudoh flushes bright, brilliant red beneath his tan, but what he says is, “That is such crap.”

“Someof it was from your subconscious.”

“None of that was real,” Kudoh says.

And while part of him wants to argue the point, he realises that this is something Kudoh needs from him for now.

“No, it wasn’t,” he agrees.

Kudoh nods to himself, and then says, “Look, I’m not here because I expect an apology or anything —”

“An apology?!”

“— but Naoe’s busy, and … Someone should check up on you every now and then.”

He has a pretty good idea what this is about, and it’s better that Kudoh leave before he tries to convince Schuldig of anything. “Your feelings for me aren’t real. You’re still confused from —”

“Oh, please. Your feelings for mearen’t real, either,” Kudoh replies calmly.

“No, that’s not true.”

“You think that spineless meat‑puppet you tortured for a week has anything in common with me, other than how I look?”

“Don’t insult me, Kudoh. I’ve taken the memory ride through your soap opera of a life,” he says as he moves closer to Kudoh. He leans forward so that they’re close enough to be kissing if Kudoh closes the distance. “What I feel for you isn’t going to get very much more real than that.”

“’Soap opera’ of a life?”

 “I’m sorry. Not for that remark, because it’s true and I mean it, but — I broke you apart.” Kudoh flinches at that. “I could help put you back together.”

“You’re not allowed to start the drugs again. Naoe was very firm.”

He’s surprised that Kudoh hasn’t simply said ‘no’ outright.

“Yeah, and he pays my salary now, so I can’t ignore him like I usually would. No, I mean … we’ll do it out here. It’ll be real.”

“Won’t that take longer?” Kudoh asks. But his posture is a lot less tense, and he doesn’t look nearly as tired.

“Yeah, but I’m okay with that,” he says.

Kudoh isn’t going to meet him halfway and he doesn’t want to crowd him anymore, but when he leans back, Kudoh shifts forward slightly and smiles. “Let's hope that I will be, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> All comments and kudos are appreciated and treasured -- even (especially?) on a fic as old as this one!


End file.
